Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v2.djvu/62

42 whimsical jewels called "keys of England." Her upper dress was of Indian muslin, embroidered all over with gold,—a great luxury, because those muslin dresses then cost six hundred crowns. A large diamond brooch fastened her corsage, the which she wore so as to display her shoulders and bosom, in the immodest fashion of the time; her chemisette was made of that lawn of which Anne of Austria had sheets so fine that they could be passed through a finger-ring. She wore what looked like a cuirass of rubies (some uncut, but polished), and precious stones were sewn all over the body of her dress. Then, her eyebrows were blackened with India ink; and her arms, elbows, shoulders, chin, and nostrils, with the top of her eyelids, the lobes of her ears, the palms of her hands, the tips of her fingers, were tinted with a glowing and provoking touch of colour. Above all, she wore an expression of implacable determination to be beautiful that amounted almost to ferocity. She was like a panther, with the power of turning cat at will, and caressing. One of her eyes was blue, the other black. Gwynplaine, as well as Ursus, contemplated her with wonder. The Green Box somewhat resembled a phantasmagoria in its representations. "Chaos Vanquished" was rather a dream than a piece; it generally produced on the audience the effect of a vision. Now, this effect was reflected on the actors. The house took the performers by surprise, and they were thunderstruck in their turn. It was a rebound of fascination. The woman watched them, and they watched her. At the distance at which they were placed, and in that luminous mist which is the half-light of a theatre, details were lost, and it was like an hallucination.

Of course it was a woman, but was it not a chimera as well? The penetration of such dazzling light into their obscurity stupefied them. It was like the